Glacier pulls back on plan to allow motor boats on Lake McDonald

Glacier National Park has retracted its announcement made yesterday that the park will fully? implement a third phase in its aquatic invasive species emergency response.?

In its retraction statement Tuesday afternoon, the park said the initial announcement that the park will release quarantine and inspection procedures for people living outside the park who would like to launch their boat on Lake McDonald was premature and was not directed by the Department of the Interior.

The park will, however, still allow private landowners living within the park boundary whose motorboats are only launched on Lake McDonald to access the lake. These boats have exceeded a 30-day quarantine requirement, and have undergone a rigorous aquatic invasive species boat inspection by Park Service staff.

Over the next few weeks, the park will release quarantine and inspection procedures for people living outside the park who would like to launch their boat on Lake McDonald, the park added in its statement Tuesday.

Glacier banned motorized watercraft earlier this year after non-native invasive mussels were found east of the divide in the Tiber Reservoir north of Great Falls and Canyon Ferry Reservoir near Helena.

Glacier Park’s first phase of the tiered response to invasive mussels was to immediately close all park waters to all hand-propelled and motorized boat use when exotic mussels were detected in Montana.

The second phase was to open park waters to hand-propelled boats following a rigorous inspection process. In addition, the second phase included early season water sampling using eDNA technology, and allowed concession rented and operated motorized tour boats to launch on park lakes.